Product Description
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So begins one of the most famous and haunting poems of English literature. But what is the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge actually talking about? Underneath the wild and visionary language is a very astute description of the way the human imagination works, in both its perceptive and creative capacities. More than simply the realm of make-believe, he saw the imagination as a powerful and necessary faculty of the mind with which we apprehend the meaning of everything we see.
Gathering together eleven of Coleridge’s most famous poems, such as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, along with selections from his prose writings, this collection presents the reader with a substantial set of texts on the nature and function of the human imagination written by one of the most insightful poets and philosophers of the early nineteenth century. With a rigorous introduction explaining Coleridge’s theory of the imagination, this volume is a valuable resource for all who want to know how to read the world around us.
“Samuel Taylor Coleridge is best known as a poet, but as this collection shows, he was far more than that. He did groundbreaking work in literary criticism, and his theories of imagination are still foundational to many thinkers today. This volume is an excellent survey of the range of his work, including not only his best-known poems but a curated sampling of his other writings, together with a very helpful introduction to his life and thought. Highly recommended!”
– Glenn Sunshine, author of 32 Christians who Changed their World